First of all - HEY Fish o' the Land, welcome back

Then on to replies:

quote: Original post by Machaira
1) What stats and how should be be used? I still think the basic stats are valid, but used slightly differently -

Actually I'd go borrow heavily from the World of Darkness rules and simplify the ultra-basic stats, leaving only three: Physical, Mental, and Social.

This has a couple of advantages. First of all, three streams of play are identified: you can emphasize the physical prowess of your character (the average fighter or soldier), the Mental ability (sorceror, mad scientist, tech type), or Social ability (Rockers in Cyberpunk, perhaps maybe bards a little bit in D&D?).
If you polarise the in-game mechanics on all of these three, then you'll allow multiple styles of play for the different archetypes.
The second benefit is that there are only three stats at top-level to worry about, and those are simple to understand in human terms. There's no huge explosion in the number of possibilities at that level, so the design of adventures/quests should also be reasonably easy, while keeping things balanced.

This system can (but should not necessarily be!) detailed by adding sub-stats to the main ones, as is done in the World of Darkness rules. The only constraint I'd put here is: the amount of detailing needs to be the same for each of the three categories, and each of the sub-stats must have the same weight towards the total (i.e. not one all-important substat and ten nearly insignificant specialised ones).

So, as a slightly-more detailed example:

Physical: Strength, Agility
Mental: Intelligence, Wit
Social: Charisma, Looks

I've tried to keep the divisions similar for each category - wit is "speed of thought", where agility is plain speed. Looks also make you have success faster in Social engagements, but in the end it comes down to your actual Charisma if you get the princess or not (unless she's really shallow ). In this case, all the substats would apply 50% towards the main stat. So a 75% strength, 25% Agility character would be at 50% physical. There are some interesting implications there already (perhaps even bad!). If raising these stats at character creation or during play is exponentially more expensive as the stats get higher, then creating an "everything average" character is going to be more beneficial than creating a specialised one (50% + 50% might be cheaper than 25% + 75%). So, is this good or bad? Should cost be balanced such that 25% + 75% is cheaper, more expensive, or the same cost as 50% + 50% ?.


Also note that I'm using percentile scores here. I like percentile scores because they are easy to read, but for unlimited-growth they aren't the best choice. What numbering system would you guys use?

quote: Original post by Machaira
Something like pain threshold or tolerance could be used in place of hit points, possibly along with Constitution. This could be something that could be improved with training.

I like the idea. I would split it up into the same three sections that I did above. You have physical tolerance, mental tolerance and social tolerance.
Physical tolerance is like hitpoints, pain threshold and endurance rolled into one. It's how long you can run, how hard someone can hit you before you say "ouch".
Mental tolerance is concentration, strength of will, that kind of thing. How long you can study without taking a break, how long you can stare someone in the eye without blinking.
Social tolerance is something I haven't seen in ANY game anywhere, most likely because PnP games tend to leave the social stuff to the players without too many rolls. Not so for PC games, we MUST roll this stuff into stats. So, what is social tolerance? It applies to things like embarrasment (how much rejection can you take before getting annoyed), and being open to people you perceive to not be in the same social class (up or down! Think of the brawny barbarian that can't stand the fragile artsy-fartsy upper class and their colourful clothes and jewelry).

I feel this would add useful complexity, but also consistency, because it grabs back to how I divided things above. The actual values of these stats could be directly related to the main score above, perhaps even BEING that value. That would, to me, be a simplification that isn't an unnecessary abstraction, but feel free to disagree

quote: Original post by Machaira
2) I would have to say a skills based system would be a good idea for combat and non-combat things. Exactly how it's implemented is open for discussion.

I'm not 100% sure on this yet either. I want skills to apply to the main ability scores outlined above, but I can't decide fully if I only want to apply them to the "aggregate" main, or the "specialised" scores. Really, it would have to be the specialised scores, otherwise there would be no point to them! Perhaps, giving the player the choice which of the specialised scores to use to perform the skill-based action. Then you automatically achieve combat using strength (full-plate-armour tank-type fighter), or agility(swashbuckler), without needing explicit secondary rules for them, and that seems like a good thing. So basically, you'd have a "physical combat" skill, that you can combine with either of your physical sub-stats to get something of an "attack roll". Very generalised, in such a way that physical combat is now no different than any other kind of skill test. I find this good, but again, feel free to disagree!

quote: Original post by Machaira
3) Armor would be used to decrease damage taken, not avoid it. Location based, of course and with a stat that measured how good it is against certain weapon types (chainmail sucks against stabbing weapons like daggers).

I don't think I'm really at the necessary level of detail with my newly-thought-up system that I can build up to a reasonable, consistent way of describing this situation. During the course of this thread I've realised that this is a VERY specialised situation, and part of the problem(the reason this discussion has arisen in the first place) is that D&D has very specialised rules for combat as opposed to everything else, suggesting that making combat even more detailed is probably a good thing. I'm thinking that the way I'm currently going about designing my system, this kind of detail might end up being overkill (which would be a shame, 'cause I find it a very interesting situation).

quote: Original post by Machaira
4) Combat could be real time turn based similar to how NWN implemented the D&D rules, or it could be open and based on things like weapon speed and quickness. Personally I would prefer the latter.

I'd prefer the latter too, and not just for combat. Writing all of this, I've realised that combat should be just like everything else, or rather, everything else should be just like combat! Combat is what has been done "most right" in most CRPGs. I'd like it to be near-real-time, with action always happening at quite a decent pace on your screen. Your character's ability would influence what exactly happened, and how often you could influence it. Now, before you flame me, "often" would be how many times per second . Maybe like, change strategy or perform a particular action you're bad at once every 2 seconds, but if you're really good, you can change every 0.5 second. The main danger I see is it becoming very "twitch gameplay"-like at high levels of ability. If I was funding and managing this as a project, I'd assign several months of playtesting to the actual pacing of this part.



Machaira, I hope you didn't read all that thinking "he's just taking down whatever I put up". I've tried to mix in my own ideas, but I realise I have very strong opinions on this so I apologise in advance if it seems like I barely read your post. So, any comments?

[edited by - MadKeithV on July 29, 2002 3:52:22 AM]

quote: Original post by Kylotan
One version of my combat rules basically assumes that every attack is a hit. I''ve played with swords, and there''s next to no way even an amateur would miss a stationary human target. So there is no ''to-hit'' roll. Instead, the defender gets a Block or
Dodge roll. The effect of this is that battle between two amateurs is swift, deadly, and quite random, whereas battle between two experts tends to take quite a while as they try to find weaknesses in the other person''s defence. This matches my own swordfighting experience, although I''ve never had the pleasure of being on a real battlefield so I don''t know how historically accurate it is.

I quite like this way of thinking. However, you have to bear in mind that there is a difference between simply hitting something, and smacking it hard enough to do some damage. I cast my mind back to when I was trying to chop up a tree which had fallen in the middle of the road with an axe. I could really wallop it, and take out a massive chunk, but the blow would be all over the place, and sometimes even completely miss the tree. (I suck at being a lumberjack) Or I could do an accurate hit, which wouldn''t do a great deal of damage, but at least I could land it in the center of the cut every time. Or I could do something in between.

Perhaps you could use separate damage and attack rolls, but assign a certain number of points to strength or accuracy. So, you could assign maximum points to accuracy, making hitting a foregone conclusion, but you only do a little bit of damage (maybe none against an armoured opponent). Or you could apply maximum points to strength, making scoring a hit very unlikely, but the damage you do when you DO hit would be nearly fatal. In a computer game you could set the strength/accuracy with a slider bar, giving the player something interesting to do while watching the characters fight.

Different weapons would require different minimum strength/accuracy points. A two handed sword might require so much strength to heft at your opponent that you can barely hit him, but its extra weight means you can assign a lot more points to strength than you ever could for a smaller weapon. A knife on the other hand is pretty small, so you have to use it accurately - you won''t be able to put all that much force behind it. The damage done by a weapon is not directly dictated by the weapon itself, but by the maximum and minimum strength/accuracy points you can assign to wielding it.

Armour complicates things a little. There are three basic ways of damaging an armoured target:

1. Finding a weakness or opening in the armour and attacking that spot. The better the coverage of the armour, the higher the accuracy you need to exploit it. Successfully exploiting a hole means any damage you do is unmodified by the armour.

2. Smacking the armour hard enough to penetrate it. The better the toughness of the armour, be more strength you need to penetrate it. Some of the damage you do gets absorbed on penetrating the armour, but doing so may also reduce the armour''s coverage value, opening a weakness and making subsequent high accuracy attacks quite nasty.

3. Bashing the armour hard enough to damage the guy underneath it. This is the easiest to do, and will probably happen most of the time when you hit the armoured opponent. However, most of the damage will get absorbed by the armour. The higher the absorption level of the armour, the less damage gets transmitted to the wearer. This also converts slashing or piercing type attacks into bludgeon type attacks.

This could be set up to work in a fairly generic manner like D&D, or you could target specific locations and use the armour values of those locations (of course, some locations will be harder to hit, and therefore require greater accuracy than others)

quote: Combat is what has been done "most right" in most CRPGs. I''d like it to be near-real-time, with action always happening at quite a decent pace on your screen.

What percentage of ''real'' speed will your action take place at? 100%? 90%? 50%? (just trying to define ''decent'' a little better)

quote: Your character''s ability would influence what exactly happened, and how often you could influence it. Now, before you flame me, "often" would be how many times per second . Maybe like, change strategy or perform a particular action you''re bad at once every 2 seconds, but if you''re really good, you can change every 0.5 second.

A real-time Jagged Alliance combat system?

quote: The main danger I see is it becoming very "twitch gameplay"-like at high levels of ability.

This is why a system like that needs a very simple input system.
Let''s assign LMB to attack and RMB to defense.
Let''s make combat as simple as possible for now, placing two fighters against each other with only a sword. Let''s for now not give them any special moves. How would combat take place?
If you want to attack, you press LMB. The actual attack that takes place would depend on an assortment of factors.
How far are the fighters removed from each other? (if too far away from each other, the attack will be an automatic miss)
What part of the body does the attack target? (head or toe?)
What type of attack? (piercing, slashing, smashing)
Is the attack blocked? (does defender press and hold RMB in time, say during the first half of the attack arc of the enemy''s sword)

In a very short amount of time (t < 0.5s) the result of the attack would have to be determined. Then, depending on the outcome, a hit or miss animation would be shown.

An attacker could press his attack by holding LMB down (the consecutive attacks that take place could be pre-set by the player). This will tire the fighter out quickly though, and all the defender has to do is hold his RMB button (which puts his fighter into an automatic mode in which it merely tries to defend itself against attacks, it doesn''t counter-attack).

There are three main ways of actually hitting an enemy:
1) attack when the enemy is not in defensive mode (when he doesn''t have RMB held or doesn''t press it in time)
2) attack and overpower your enemy (attack with a weapon and attack move that the opponent simply can not physically withstand)
3) attack and target a weakness in your enemy''s defenses (attack a location on the target''s body that you notice he can not properly defend with his current weapon and defensive mode)

Players will develop their fighters to excel at certain types of attacks. That big, bulky fighter will probably try to overpower me with his strength, while the lean, agile thief will move around me looking for an opening.

Not sure if this is making sense, but I think to get an ''almost-real-time'' fluid swordplay, you really need a very simple input, at least at the most basic level. More advanced techniques could require a higher level of input (add keyboard keys). And just like I think RTS games could benefit from allowing the player more preparation before the fight (setting AI for hit units, assigning tasks, creating formations), a combat game like this could benefit greatly from allowing the player to set certain combinations of actions. For example, I could create a combat combination move in which my fighter moves backward slowly, holding a sword in his right arm and going into defensive mode, while at the same time reaching for a health potion. These actions would require less time if the fighter would perform the actions individually during combat (that is, moving character backward by pressing arrow key backward, holding sword in defensive mode by pressing RMB and reaching for potion by pressing [potion] button; 3 seconds total), but as a combination action, all the player would have to do is press one single button (though the action might take 4 seconds total).

Like you said though, the danger of ''twitch gameplay'' is high. Just trying to find a way to prevent that while still providing real-time, entertaining combat.

quote: Original post by Silvermyst
What percentage of ''real'' speed will your action take place at? 100%? 90%? 50%? (just trying to define ''decent'' a little better)

Really, I don''t know! I haven''t seen a lot of real swordfights barring those in movies (hah, REAL ), but somehow I get the feeling that working at 100% would be slow enough, because you''re not actually swinging the sword, but pointing a mouse.

Now, I''d slow it down a tad from that, to give beginning players a better chance at coping with the interface when they aren''t familiar with it yet. Perhaps even a small slider that you can shift from 150% time to 50% time if you feel the action is too fast/too slow.

In that way, even "twitch" players (which I am, partly... I used to run a Quake2 clan) can get a nice simple almost Diablo-like fix, while the die-hard PnP roleplayers can slow it down enough to make some form of tactical decisions.

Making a short reference to D&D 3E - a "round" is just about the smallest unit of choice you have, and that is supposed to take up 6 seconds of in-game time. I think one action per six seconds would definately be too slow for most players though, you probably want finer-grained control than that. So, I got to the rough idea of one-per-second, because that''s also the time it takes in my mind to make a single, decent swing with a sword.
Maybe it would be a good idea to watch a few fencing games, and see how long it takes there. Fencing is FAST combat, visceral combat with powerful, rather than finesse, weapons will take longer, but fencing would provide a very good "baseline" for what a fast, finesse fighter is capable of.

I very much like the interface you described. I think it would work well, especially if combined with a good "combat stager" that makes the fights nice and dramatic by tweaking your AI decisions and your opponent''s. A LOT of possibilities for some nice story-telling AI scripting, IMO. Imagine if your uber-AI running the fight decided that, even though you are winning and just scored a massive hit (which hasn''t been shown graphically yet), you''ve already scored a few good hits this combat, and another one would be a bit boring. So, it decides to translate your hit into your opponent stumbling over a nearby obstacle.

Sandman - your breakdown of armour functionality is very useful! I''ll have to store that for later reference when I get as deep as that into my system. Which I hope is soon

quote: I very much like the interface you described. I think it would work well, especially if combined with a good "combat stager" that makes the fights nice and dramatic by tweaking your AI decisions and your opponent''s. A LOT of possibilities for some nice story-telling AI scripting, IMO.

I like your whole concept of ''combat staging''. With that in mind, it might help to think of the design as somewhat of a WWF concept, where two contestants do battle, but many more people sit and watch. In order to keep those people entertained, you need to make the fight entertaining. And in order to keep the fighters entertained, you need to give them some motivation. Heck, you might even really make the fight into a show, letting the fighters rehearse beforehand, planning their moves together, creating drama, showing of their fighting prowess (a good fighter can strike a lethal blow, but it takes an expert fighter to be able to make attacks that to be lethal)

Hehe just the thought is amusing... but coming to think of it, really, computer RPG playing is a LOT like that...

The player is watching someone else (his character) doing a lot of stuff... the only difference is that the player''s shouts of encouragement are generally very effective, in that his character does exactly what''s being shouted. But, the player still has to be entertained, and the character isn''t controlled "in-detail" by the player as much as in, say, an FPS.

If done right, more people than just the players might watch, ''cause it could be really fun to see it all explode on the screen.

Since we''re talking about implementations, here is my stat list:

Physical (body)
Physical (quickness)
Mental (mind)
Mental (charisma)

Magic (magery)
Magic (priestly)

The main stat groups (body, mind) have 3 substats to show their importance and the minor stat groups (quickness, charisma) have 2 substats.

As for the effect of armor, it really matters on the weapon type. If you''re shooting an arrow, shields are the best (bar none) defense, other than a wall If you''re taking a mace blow, hardened or reinforced leather will work rather nice, though plate over chain will probably do the best job of absorbing and dispersing the blow. The best defense is to not be there though, which is the strength of lighter armors.

Every weapon has a different focus and strength. Piercers are excellent against light to medium armor types, but horrible against heavy armors.

Weighted weapons (axes, hammers) have the greatest cross section of damage dealing potential against armors, but against lightly armored opponents they are very weak attacks, since they are limited in their attack style and the lighter armors afford greater mobility against the slower, predictable attacks.

Piercers and light slashing weapons: Good against light armored opponents, decent against medium armor, near useless against heavily armored opponents.

Bashing and chopping weapons: Very weak against lighter armor types, where mobility is high, decent against medium armors where mobility can be compromised and good against heavy armors where mobility is near non-existant.

In general the speed and weight of the weapon will determine it''s effectiveness of a weapon. Heavy weapons which are slow are very difficult to land on a lightly armored opponent can quickly wear down a heavily armored opponent (almost exactly) like a boxer wears down his opponent with blows to the body. Light and quick weapons have a much higher chance to land on a lightly armored opponent, but against the heavier armored opponents, the chance of having a telling blow that does more than chink the armor and damage the weapon is minimal.

These are some of the effects that I''m putting into my game. Weapons defensive capabilities and penalties, those slow and heavy weapons are as much of a crutch as a benefit, slowing down the attacker with attacks that take upwards of 4-6 seconds to implement and leave huge weaknesses during the attack time. Light weapons on the other hand, take 1-2 seconds for an attack to occur and are light enough to change the direction of the weapon in case of a desperately needed parry or an opportunity to riposte.

Much as skills give you abilities, the weapon that you use should either enhance or hinder those abilities based upon it''s attributes. The same goes with armor. It should either hinder or enhance your abilities or skills based upon it''s capacity. A blow that would daze a warrior in no armor would not even make a warrior in plate covered chain blink.

The real debate is where you put the division. Do you make no armor the standard and have any armor enhance (or penalize) skills or do you make some level of armor (light or medium) the standard and have people start with skill enhancements (penalties) from the start? I guess it matters on whether you want to set your sights for the earlier or middle game. It would definitely be easier to just have armor enhance or penalize and consider no armor the standard. Of course, you could just make skills appropriate for the armor that you would expect a character to have when they get the ability, but that would potentially make it a little more confusing to the player.

Anyway, I''m getting into the rambling state, so I''ll just leave it at that right now.

quote: Original post by MadKeithV

Machaira, I hope you didn''t read all that thinking "he''s just taking down whatever I put up". I''ve tried to mix in my own ideas, but I realise I have very strong opinions on this so I apologise in advance if it seems like I barely read your post. So, any comments?

Didn''t think that at all. This is an open discussion where no one''s opinion is right or wrong since there is no right or wrong way of doing a system. Whatever works best for everyone.

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
So, as a slightly-more detailed example:

Physical: Strength, Agility
Mental: Intelligence, Wit
Social: Charisma, Looks

I''m not sure what I think about this at this point. I''d probably have to see it in action, but the physical side seems a little less than accurate to me.

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
Also note that I''m using percentile scores here. I like percentile scores because they are easy to read, but for unlimited-growth they aren''t the best choice. What numbering system would you guys use?

I personally like the 1-100 system with the ability to go above 100 for super-human abilities (magic altered mostly)

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
Social tolerance is something I haven''t seen in ANY game anywhere, most likely because PnP games tend to leave the social stuff to the players without too many rolls. Not so for PC games, we MUST roll this stuff into stats. So, what is social tolerance? It applies to things like embarrasment (how much rejection can you take before getting annoyed), and being open to people you perceive to not be in the same social class (up or down! Think of the brawny barbarian that can''t stand the fragile artsy-fartsy upper class and their colourful clothes and jewelry).

Very interesting idea. The brain-dead barbarian that can only take so much of a whiny NPC before he goes over an clobbers him would definitely be different.

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
I want skills to apply to the main ability scores outlined above, but I can''t decide fully if I only want to apply them to the "aggregate" main, or the "specialised" scores. Really, it would have to be the specialised scores, otherwise there would be no point to them! Perhaps, giving the player the choice which of the specialised scores to use to perform the skill-based action. Then you automatically achieve combat using strength (full-plate-armour tank-type fighter), or agility(swashbuckler), without needing explicit secondary rules for them, and that seems like a good thing. So basically, you''d have a "physical combat" skill, that you can combine with either of your physical sub-stats to get something of an "attack roll". Very generalised, in such a way that physical combat is now no different than any other kind of skill test. I find this good, but again, feel free to disagree!

I''ve never liked the generalized combat where a character is good with every weapon. Doesn''t leave much room for interesting combat to me. Combat between two fighters using broadswords wouldn''t be any different than combat between a fighter with a broadsword and a thief with a couple of daggers. Who would win would be a combination of stats and level of skill with their weapons. A slow thief that''s highly skilled might not be quick enough to dodge the single blow that would be needed to kill him.

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
I don''t think I''m really at the necessary level of detail with my newly-thought-up system that I can build up to a reasonable, consistent way of describing this situation. During the course of this thread I''ve realised that this is a VERY specialised situation, and part of the problem(the reason this discussion has arisen in the first place) is that D&D has very specialised rules for combat as opposed to everything else, suggesting that making combat even more detailed is probably a good thing. I''m thinking that the way I''m currently going about designing my system, this kind of detail might end up being overkill (which would be a shame, ''cause I find it a very interesting situation).

I''ve found that you almost have to consider all aspects of combat in coming up with a combat system that''s consistent for all possible types of combat. That''s just my opinion of course though. As long as you get a system that works for you and the players it doesn''t really matter how you come up with it.

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
I''d prefer the latter too, and not just for combat. Writing all of this, I''ve realised that combat should be just like everything else, or rather, everything else should be just like combat! Combat is what has been done "most right" in most CRPGs. I''d like it to be near-real-time, with action always happening at quite a decent pace on your screen. Your character''s ability would influence what exactly happened, and how often you could influence it. Now, before you flame me, "often" would be how many times per second . Maybe like, change strategy or perform a particular action you''re bad at once every 2 seconds, but if you''re really good, you can change every 0.5 second. The main danger I see is it becoming very "twitch gameplay"-like at high levels of ability. If I was funding and managing this as a project, I''d assign several months of playtesting to the actual pacing of this part.

Definetely something like this would require a good bit of testing. That''s been my problem with RPGs to date - their either twitch games or boring round-by-round more-of-the-same combat. I''d really like to see something different as long as it works fairly well and seemed realistic.

quote: Original post by solinear
Since we''re talking about implementations, here is my stat list:

Physical (body)
Physical (quickness)
Mental (mind)
Mental (charisma)

Magic (magery)
Magic (priestly)

Magic as an ability... Yes I can see some advantages to that, because it leads to "magic is an innate thing, not something learned". Within the right setting, I think that would be the correct way of going about it. A small comment: I personally disagree with "charisma" being a mental stat, I find it separate, though it can be argued that without a mind, there would be no social interaction.

quote: Original post by solinear
In general the speed and weight of the weapon will determine it''s effectiveness of a weapon.

I mostly agree with this section, though perhaps there is one more factor that comes into play at this level of detail: reach. A large weapon allows you to keep your opponent at bay, but it will also be heavier and slower, inevitably. Perhaps a weapon is a tradeoff between the factors speed, weight, and size. Something to consider (which I won''t do in detail, yet )

quote: Original post by solinear
The real debate is where you put the division. Do you make no armor the standard and have any armor enhance (or penalize) skills or do you make some level of armor (light or medium) the standard and have people start with skill enhancements (penalties) from the start?

Actually, that''s where I''m currently at with my basic stat system. My next post will be about that, but I still need some time to polish the idea some more and form some objections/thoughts on my own idea, specifically concerning this kind of division. You need to define "average" somehow, and it has a big implication on the rest of the system. My personal preference is defining "average" as what the normal commoner would be able to do, not the normal "hero". Therefore, in my system, ANY armour would most likely give a bonus since most normal folk don''t go around in chain mail or even boiled leather.